


Nόστος, a story about Argos

by thoodleoo



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, The Odyssey - Homer
Genre: Gen, I'm Sorry, If I were Homer it wouldn't have happened but I am not Homer so this is what you get instead, the dog dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4821296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoodleoo/pseuds/thoodleoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Argos, Odysseus's faithful dog, muses on his time spent waiting for his master to return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nόστος, a story about Argos

For twenty years I have kept my vigil, or so men say. I do not know. The dusty days blend together, and I count not the minutes but the flies that swarm around my flanks and pads and dry, cracked ears and bite their stinging bites. Sometimes I do not even bother to lift my tail and swish the hateful creatures away with a weak wag; my skin is thick and scarred from thousands of their stings, my blood thin and foul from years of wasting away. 

            The swineherd who lives nearby watches me as I sit upon my throne of refuse, where I wait each day, sitting on the soft piles of cattle manure that have begun to attract the flies more than my panting, skin-covered skeleton. Poor dog, he says, and he shakes his head. Poor dog, waited twenty years for his master to come home. I do not understand his sadness. The years mean nothing to me- for what is a dog born for but to await his master’s voice, to watch, unmoving, until his master calls him to the hunt and they can move as one through the forest, a strange pack in pursuit of a common prey? 

            I am too old to hunt. My aching bones sometimes refuse my commands, and I suffer their complaints from atop my warm, stinking home. My pads are numb and my legs weak without the blood that so many fattened ticks have gorged themselves upon for me to move at times. Hunting is for young dogs, such as I once was in days when I too would run wild and raise the victory cry after a successful hunt and lick the blood and sweat from my master’s hands as he said my name, that sweet sound he chose just for me, a sound so seldom spoken to me since he left that I cannot remember it. But perhaps he will still take me in with joy when he returns; perhaps I will sit not on this heap of dung but at his feet by a warm hearth, and I will tell him of all the things he has missed, of his little baby who used to run about this quiet land and grew up as I grew old, and of the men who came to stay at the palace with their loud voices and their heavy blows that drove me from my happy home, and of the quiet, lonely days I have spent here, waiting. But most of all I will tell him that I love him with a wag of my gray tail and a grin on my fly-scarred face, and he will pat my head and tell me that I am a good boy.

            But enough of this reverie, one I have found myself so often falling into. The hopes of dogs and of men have very little in common, their ambitions so often conflicting with our carefree love of sleep and play. And so I wait and bear the summer heat, the winter frost, the sharp and loveless land where man and dog together have felt the cut of rocks on our feet and the sun’s sting in the shadeless fields and yet somehow still lived and loved. I have spent so many years in this unforgiving land, waiting- what is one more?          

            Men pass by every day, and very few spare a glance for a tired old dog half-caked with mud and manure, none realizing that none of them escape his notice. Those that do see me sneer with disgust, for my kind is a kind both loved and despised, the loyal guardian and the shameless cur. What love could any of them have for a filthy, dying beast, not knowing his story? For men sing the triumphs of men and recount their own journeys with rhythmic words that are beyond the understanding of dogs, but animals too have our own struggles, our own tales of glory and woe, our own odysseys. Some day they will speak of my master as a brave, cunning man, and I, his loyal companion in the days before he became truly great, will be forgotten, a bag of bones and skin lying unburied by the roadside as the vultures gather to scavenge what the flies and ticks have left behind of me.

           This does not pain me, much as one might think from how I speak of it. His triumph is my own. I am content to wait and see his glory. And so I do. The swineherd leaves me water and scraps and pets my sore ears tenderly, a kindness for a tired old dog. But his pity is no replacement for my master’s love, and I cannot give him more than a feeble wag as thanks.             

            For twenty years I have kept my vigil, and perhaps twenty years are too many for the limits of a dog’s body. I am very tired. But the hope for my master’s voice is too strong to let my soul- if dogs have souls- yet leave my body. 

            And twenty years are enough. 

            He does not look the same, returning to his home- our home- shaggy and thin and weak, a fitting master for such a dog as me. But that does not matter to me. No one looks at this man, this beggar, and sees the great king of this land. But I, I alone, know him from the moment I take in a noseful of that sweet, warm scent. Of its own accord my tail thumps a welcome against the manure, and I gather my strength to rouse my long-unused body to my feet. 

            He looks at me, then, and something flashes in his face, something changes in his scent. Recognition, first, and my tail wags faster; then panic, and the wagging stops; and finally happiness, and the wagging returns. Our eyes lock, and he mumbles one of his strange human sounds, and I can remember it now, the sounds he picked for me. “Argos,” he says softly, and all over again I am a puppy, squirming with joy at the sight and sound and smell of him. 

            But then his scent changes again, and it is sad and weary. He turns, pauses, and walks away. 

            People call my master the man of many ways. Perhaps, then, this is simply one of those many. He has always been crafty and clever with disguise- I saw this on our hunts so long ago and, at times, when other men with strange, foreign scents would visit him in the palace- and I have rarely understood his intent. And now, all the same, I do not, cannot, understand. We animals seldom do, and perhaps it is asked of us that we do not, that we simply accept. I, for all of my pain, my lack of understanding, choose to accept. He is my master, after all; in this too I must obey him, much as I do not want to. 

            Somewhere inside me I know that I will never see him again. But as I take in the sight of his back as he walks away, I cannot hate him. I am his dog, and he is my man, and nothing, not even twenty years, can change that. Just as I cannot change what has happened, I cannot change that I love him. I wag my tail fiercely until his figure disappears down the dusty road, and then I lay my gray muzzle upon my numb paws. 

            For twenty years I have kept my vigil. 

            I believe that I have earned my rest.

# 

**Author's Note:**

> I have but one request for my readers: if you have a dog, please pet them for me.


End file.
